2018 Guest Artists

From our annual open call, The New Music Conflagration, Inc. is proud to welcome the following guest artists to perform on the 2018 Florida International Toy Piano Festival program and to participate in community outreach events! One of the concerts with the festival guest artists will occur at Hawthorne Bottle Shoppe where the owners are arranging a special pairing of beers and wines to compliment the artists and compositions that will be performed on the program!

Nadia Shpachenko & The Cal Poly Pomona Piano Ensemble
Nadia Shpachenko: Multiple GRAMMY® nominated pianist Nadia Shpachenko enjoys bringing into the world things that are outside the box – powerful pieces that often possess unusual sonic qualities or instrumentation. Described by critics as a “truly inspiring and brilliant pianist… spellbinding in sensitivity and mastery of technique,” she performs on piano, toy piano, harpsichord, and percussion in concerts that often also feature recitation, electronics and multimedia. Nadia’s concert highlights include solo recitals at Concertgebouw, Carnegie Hall, Bargemusic, the Phillips Collection, and Disney Hall, as well as numerous appearances as soloist with orchestras in Europe and the Americas.

An enthusiastic promoter of contemporary music, Nadia has given world and national premieres of more than 50 works by Elliott Carter, George Crumb, Daniel Felsenfeld, Tom Flaherty, Annie Gosfield, Vera Ivanova, Leon Kirchner, Amy Beth Kirsten, Hannah Lash, James Matheson, Missy Mazzoli, Harold Meltzer, Adam Schoenberg, Lewis Spratlan, Iannis Xenakis, Peter Yates, and others. Described as “an exceptional recording of newly composed piano works,” Nadia’s CD “Woman at the New Piano: American Music of 2013” was nominated for 58th GRAMMY® Awards in 3 categories: Best Classical Compendium, Best Chamber Music/Small Ensemble Performance by Nadia Shpachenko and Genevieve Feiwen Lee for Tom Flaherty’s “Airdancing” for Toy Piano, Piano and Electronics, and Producer of the Year, Classical for Marina A. Ledin and Victor Ledin. Nadia’s upcoming recording project “Quotations and Homages” features newly-written solo and collaborative works for 6 pianists (performed with Ray-Kallay Duo, HOCKET and Genevieve Feiwen Lee) inspired by a variety of earlier composers and pieces. Nadia’s upcoming recording project “The Poetry of Places” features new solo and collaborative works (performed with pianist Joanne Pearce Martin and percussionists Nick Terry and Cory Hills) inspired by diverse buildings.

Nadia Shpachenko is Professor of Music at Cal Poly Pomona University, where she leads the Piano Performance program and was awarded the 2017 Provost’s Award for Excellence in Scholarly and Creative Activities. She is also on the faculty of Claremont Graduate University, where she teaches Doctoral piano students. Her principal teachers included John Perry, Victor Rosenbaum, and Victor Derevianko. Nadia Shpachenko is a Steinway Artist and a Schoenhut Toy Piano Artist.

The Cal Poly Pomona Piano Ensemble: The Cal Poly Pomona Piano Ensemble is directed by multiple GRAMMY®-nominated pianist Nadia Shpachenko, who often performs with the group. The Piano Ensemble performs repertoire for piano 4-hands, duo-piano and for 3-8 keyboard players on multiple instruments, which include pianos, toy pianos, and harpsichords. In addition to performing repertoire from the classical canon, the group’s mission is to program and promote newly-written piano ensemble repertoire and to collaborate with contemporary composers. Most recently The Cal Poly Pomona Piano Ensemble worked with composers Tom Flaherty, James Matheson, and Jack Van Zandt, whose new pieces they will tour during the 2017/2018 concert season.

Figmentum
Figmentum is new performing ensemble and collaboration between Daria Binkowski, Kyle Rowan, and Ania Sundstrom based in San Diego, CA. We are a flutist, clarinetist, and pianist, but more than that, we are composers, writers, builders. A Figmentum event may be at a coffee house in North Park, a museum Downtown, or even a bookstore by the beach in Del Mar. Toy pianos – pink, red, and black – may find their way onto our stage. Newly-constructed instruments might make their debut. Our performances seek to engage with the community, to be an integral part of San Diego’s culture.

Currently in our inaugural season, our projects include: commissioning and performing new works for toy piano, in ensemble and in combination with our core instruments; commissioning and performing new works by women, both as part of our standard repertoire and on a dedicated concert program in Spring 2018; and commissioning and performing new works for our newly constructed replica of Harry Partch’s Harmonic Canon II.